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In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

nytimes.com

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Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#251

Post by jeekl »

raverbashing wrote: post #203
Symbiote wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Scandinavia, usually just by showing the "payment sent" screen to the merchant. The merchant can check their own device for the notification if they want confirmation. The annoying background video shows it: http://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/Pages/mobilepay.aspx

Seems a bit slower than NFC, but I haven't seen it in action (and the payment sent screen can be spoofed) For tips it seems fine

For most situations, spoofing a sent-screen that usually displays the vendor or persons name, is not too easy to do in the heat of the moment, without preparation, so it's not really been a problem yet.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#252

Post by usernam »

Sukram21 wrote: post #247
usernam wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In EU you have a pin and you also have to sign the receipt. In supermarkets, cards (debit or credit) queue up the checkout line. Cash is way faster, hands down. I bothered to compare the difference once, since cards here are not the norm. We're talking between 5-10 seconds (cash register) vs 30-45 seconds, most of which are dead times (waiting for confirmation).

In the EU (at least here in Germany), if you have entered your PIN, you don't need to sign the receipt. If the PIN is not required during payment, then you need to sign. Edit (replying to child): This applies when paying with credit card and EC/girocard. I don't know what you mean by ATM circuit.

You have to note: are you paying with the ATM circuit or with the credit card?

The ATM circuit often doesn't require an additional signature (although in some countries like IT it's still required)

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#253

Post by Bakary »

frozenport wrote: post #35

Fucking non-sense, American's strive to create products that are different. The Chinese stereotype is to copy those. The copies are often not cost equivalent won't perform the same function as the original. Further it is often done with the full intent of tricking people, for example knock off Apple stores, Italian clothing etc. In absolute terms the average Chinese person can't afford higher quality items.

WeChat itself is probably the biggest counterexample I can think of. After a year of using it, Whatsapp feels like a primitive knockoff in comparison.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#254

Post by dis-sys »

lostboys67 wrote: post #202
tanilama wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Chinese, I would say, the scale and speed of China getting rid of cash is truly impressive and makes me proud, but, in US, with credit card and Apple/Android Pay, I am pretty much cashless as well. For me, the achievement of mobile payment is social-economical, that is more about how companies could persuade customers to adapt a new way of doing something than inventing some ground-breaking technology. In case of…

Why are you "proud" of removing cash going fully digital allows governments to implement negative interest rates ie steal your monney

Chinese Yuan that stays in your online payment account is usually managed by some cash funds, e.g. Yuebao from Alipay currently manages over $200 billion and it is returning 4.1% pa.

In case you are arguing that the <1% fee should be considered as a part of the overall "interest" rate, well, that small fee does bring you the real convenience.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#256

Post by sshtunnels »

Ironchefpython wrote: post #197
williamle8300 wrote: post #33

No thanks. Cash is king. Money should never be traceable, and you should be able to buy with anonymity.

> No thanks. Cash is king. Money should never be traceable, and you should be able to buy with anonymity. If you believe that, you're going to be shocked when the vast majority of people switch to cashless systems, and cash will only be used for criminal activity, and then cash will become criminalized. The solution isn't to preserve cash. That's doomed to failure.

> and then cash will become criminalized

It won't happen if enough people fight it. You should value privacy and have a healthy distrust of both banks and governments.

Here are the heartening results of an EU survey conducted earlier this year about restricting payments in cash[0]. In short, 94.9% of respondents oppose restrictions on cash payments. 86.9% believe that paying anonymously is an essential personal freedom. That's the spirit.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/publication/CashPayments

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#258

Post by urethrafranklin »

williamle8300 wrote: post #33

No thanks. Cash is king. Money should never be traceable, and you should be able to buy with anonymity.

Cash is already somewhat traceable (what did you think it was numbered for?) and it's illegal to buy some things anonymously, so it's really strange that you believe these things.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#259

Post by f4rker »

coliveira wrote: post #154
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people pay their balance off every month in the USA. Credit card doesn't mean borrowing. The big problem with credit cards in China is fraud: banks like ICBC will put the burden of proof on the card holder when a fraud transaction occurs, rather than the merchant as in the west. I really hate ICBC. Anyways, debit cards work just like QR pay does, just like UnionPay already does. The problem QR codes are…

> I think most people pay their balance off every month in the USA You would be surprised to learn that this is far from the truth. www.gallup.com/poll/22879/Credit-Card-Owners-Average-Balance-More-Than-3000.aspx

Very very far from the truth. A reminder that what one reads in comments should be taken with a grain of salt.

There are many reasons this statement is flat out incorrect.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#260

Post by dis-sys »

NamTaf wrote: post #52

Everyone in Australia just uses paypass/paywave contactless payment with their credit cards. I rarely carry any signifiant amount of crash for that reason. It's essentially the same as using your phone except you use your credit card and doesn't require a PIN or anything for signature is no longer allowed . Without having used WeChat's approach with QR code scanning, it doesn't seem that different for the end user in…

Let me share a few real life use cases for you -

when I go to pubs/restaurants with friends in Shanghai, one of us would be using AliPay to pay for the whole bill, then he/she would be using AliPay's "AA Pay" feature to show the QR code to get money from everyone. I guess your paywave card won't help you on that.

shared bike is extremely popular these days, it costs you $10c for a one hour ride. paywave card is useless for such innovative products - the amount of each transaction is too small, plus you don't want to see a card reader on each bike as there are 10 million such bikes now.

EFTPOS style devices were popular in China, the quarterly statement from Chinese central bank shows that around 6 billion debit cards and half billion credit cards were issued in total.

http://www.pcac.org.cn/file/File/1490069955.pdf

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